Mrs. Hummingbird, Toronto
Age and Occupation: 25, Publishing Coordinator
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Videogame Designer/Cartoonist
Engagement Date: May 4, 2007
Wedding Date: June 28, 2008
Blogging Since: September 18, 2007
Venue: A garden wedding followed by a tented reception on Mr. Hummingbird's father's property.
About Me: I’m a pop culture loving, vintage obsessed foodie living in Canada’s biggest city with my fantastic fiancé and our lovable fluffy cat Bettie. I’m stoked to marry my best friend and to throw what I hope will be
the most fun and colourful party of our lives.
Wedding Kombat!!!
April 24th, 2008 @ 11:15 am by Mrs. Hummingbird
(Picture courtesy of www.webwombat.com.)
Doesn’t every bride have a day where she feels like she could just
whip out a samurai sword and kick some ass?
Prior to us getting engaged and starting the wedding planning process, I would watch wedding planning shows with fighting families and laugh at the ridiculous of it all.
I mean, on the surface, it does seem really absurd. I mean isn’t a wedding supposed to be fun? Why on Earth would people get worked up over such a happy occasion?
Unfortunately, much to my and Mr. Hummingbird’s dismay, we found ourselves embroiled in a family fight this week after a misunderstanding left everyone up in arms. Accusations flew. Threats were made. People cried. It was a bad scene, made worse by the fact that it was broken down along family lines with my family on one side of things and Mr. Hum’s on another.
I’d be lying if I said the whole thing wasn’t incredibly disheartening. We’ve been together almost four years, we’ve spent tons of time with each other’s families and especially over the last few months, I’ve come to consider us all as a unit. So suddenly feeling pushed backwards and having a line drawn in the sand between clans like that just really hurt.
Things have since calmed down, issues have been cleared up and the combatants seemed to have returned to their corners, but I can’t help but feel a little raw about things and wonder if we’ll be able to make it through the 60 odd days we have left unscathed.
I know we’re not the first set of families to go all Hatfield-McCoy over a wedding, but I’ve got to ask - has anyone else out there experienced ridiculous family drama during planning? What was it about and what did you do to resolve it?
P.S. Special thanks to Mr. Hummingbird, who is an awesome partner and who stood by my side through this whole ordeal (and who didn’t believe I would entitle a post Wedding Kombat! You owe me dinner, buddy!).
20 Responses to “Wedding Kombat!!!”
For some unexplainable reason, I kept reading your title as “Wedding Wombat” and could not figure out how I was missing the punchline. Duh! I get it now! That’s the perfect image 
yes! my in-town aunt thought that her grown children and their kids should be invited to our RD and they weren’t even doing anything and one’s wife was extremely inappropriate and rude to me at one of my showers! The family feuded, my mom stood her ground as DH parents were paying anyway. They were forced to let it go. It’s amazing how petty people can be!
Yes… unfortunately this is too familiar to me. At the 2 months and under timeframe and I think everyone’s stress starts to mount (including the bride) and other family members that didn’t seem to care so much about wedding details suddenly have an opinion about everything!
What really put me over the edge was my father in-law giving his opinion (criticism) about invitations after they had already been mailed out and about other decisions that we had all discussed 6 months prior but he probably wasn’t paying attention. Argh!
The one great thing is having a fiance who stands by you because that made me so excited to be married to him!
Not quite as dramatic as your experience, but FI and I have had issue after issue with my FFIL leading to him and I having a fight over Christmas and FI’s currently semi-estrangement from his father. Somewhat fortunately, I don’t think that it was the wedding that caused it, just merely precipitated the underlying issues. Not only has it been frustrating for me planning-wise (are FFIL and family even coming/contributing to the RD, etc?) but it has been heartbreaking for FI at a time that should be joyous.
natalie - yes! why do family members (read: in-laws) who have shown no interest to date, suddenly want a vote when we’re at 60 days and counting?! So frustrating. Fortunately, there have been no major blow-outs, just petty annoyances.
I had a small meeting with both familes when we first started planning , and explained what WE wanted and then asked if there was anything that anyone thought was uber important. I also explained that while we would take all considerations this was our wedding and we could not budget in everyones desires ( including some of our wish list). I’ve been lucky so far , no feuding , but I did have to explain to his grandmother that we could not invite everyone she knew to the wedding , I’ve heard some second hand griping but thats all.
I want to throw out that maybe this is a good thing: Both of our families were civil, and even friendly, toward each other for most of the wedding planning. My sister/MOH and I had a few arguments, but we had a really productive “hash-it-out” session a week before the wedding: we both said some hurtful stuff, we both cried, but it ended with each of us reinforcing that we love each other dearly. We just had to have it out, I think.
Fast forward almost two years. Now my mom and brother have weirdly morphed into constant critics of my DH and in-laws, even though they both liked them before. My sister, meanwhile, is still very cool about us and goes out of her way to treat DH like a brother. I honestly think that the frankness we showed each other in that “fight” helped us understand each other better. And in avoiding conflict, my other family members can’t seem to figure out how to just be honest about minor annoyances (but they can’t just keep it to themselves, either?). The slow burn they’re on right now has the potential to cause more long-lasting damage than a short (though painful) fight.
With that having been said, I’m sorry you had to go through this, Miss H. I am hoping that everyone is emotionally invested in your wedding because it’s really important to them, because YOU are important to them. Also, it’s always awesome to get through a tough time and realize your mate is even more reliable/steadfast than you thought.
Finally, that is an awesome image/post title. Nice work.
Thanks so much for posting about this. I’m experiencing some family drama of my own and I’m glad to know I’m not alone in this. Basically my future sister in law has recently been going to my fiance and making accusations about my mother and I. She feels that we’re not including her side of the family in the planning and is really upset about it. Instead of coming to me with her concerns about my actions, she’s going to my finace and putting him in the middle. Awkward for him because he wants everyone to be happy. And I’m shocked because I feel like my mother and I have gone out of our way to include his side of the family. So… I’ve tried to nip it in the bud. I’ve gone to her directly and suggested we should get together to talk about her feelings (and hopefully put a stop to the he said, she said, and finger pointing). Ugh.
I said I’d give you a million points if you used that title. Not dinner, you mooch 
I am still waiting for the drama, but we are 80 days out so there is still lots of time. Luckily we are actually giving the various family members very little say in how things go anyway! Since nobody has any illusions that their opinion really matters, they are so far incredibly polite about voicing any opinion. Our original plan was courthouse + small dinner with family and friends, and I think my family is still terrified that if they push me too far, we will just cancel the whole thing and go back to that plan, perhaps minus the dinner. FI thinks that his family may have gotten all the drama out of their systems while we were dating and right after we got engaged - and there was some drama, particularly with FSIL - but since he told her she could be polite and pretend to be happy for us or stay away altogether (don’t call, don’t email, don’t write, see ya’ have a nice life) his family has been pretty well behaved.
It’s always the stupid stuff that sets it off, isn’t it? A friend of mine had a big dust-up between DH’s family and hers over a freakin’ receiving line. Of course, the receiving line issue was a stand-in for a lot of other issues, and it was probably good to have some of that out, but it still sucked for her and DH.
Sigh…if only it weren’t like this, but this scenario is all too familiar. I don’t know why weddings seem to bring out the worst in people or bring family problems that were there to begin with more to the surface. It’s happened with us, too (similar scenario: famlies on different sides, etc., to the point where it wouldn’t be worth getting them together in the same room again at all.)
Absolutely yes, and we’ve only been engaged for a little while. I’d tell you what it was and how we’re trying to resolve it, but I made the mistake of asking for advice about it on another site’s wedding board and got harshly criticized by total strangers who misinterpreted what I wrote! Yuck.
Thank you for being honest about this. There’s so much information out there about how to pick your flowers, but so little about how to navigate conflicts that seem to come out of nowhere.
My mom always says…and I’m sure it’s not her quote, that weddings and funerals can bring out the best and worst in people. I know that I have found this to be true.
Yes, it happens to the best of us.
I had to instigate a “no one will be staying at our house” policy. I think it hurt my fiance’s feelings (because most of my family lives in town, so it primarily affects his family), but we have so many family and friends coming out that I knew it would become an issue. So while no one gets a free ride, at least we’re equal.
But we’re running into issues because our definition of “wedding” is different - I’m accustomed to formal affairs, while his family does casual BBQs. Sigh. Overall, we’ve compromised. But I drew the line at his dad wearing at least a jacket. That’s a must.
So sorry to hear about all the madness - wedding should be about the couple getting married. My FH and I are incredibly lucky in that both sets of parents buy into that philosophy. That said, BunnyBlue has a good point - we also sat down with the respective families to discuss what we wanted and are going from there. We’re paying for most of it ourselves, so we have a little more flexibility. Since we are also having a small family wedding in a venue with limited space (invite list is 55 - he’s got a BIG family), it’s helped curb the run-away invitation list.
Of course, the initial openness and limited venue hasn’t stopped invitation requests from either side. We’re making decisions as they come up and explaining as we go. So far, so good, but I’m sure there will be something as we get closer (we’re still 5 months out). My guess is that the biggest issue will be photography. My family is blended and I have very different ideas on who should be included in the ‘family’ shots and overall, FH and I are limiting the number of posed shots in lieu of more candids. We’re spreading the word and preparing folks now in anticipation of fireworks. Hopefully, by getting it out sooner, it will help smooth things out closer to the date!
Best of luck, Miss Hummingbird - sounds like you have a fabulous guy to support you in your Wedding Kombat - you two shall emerge victorious!
This really reminds me of Kill Bill.
I have the same problem only it’s a long standing problem coming to a head because of the wedding.
My partner’s brother met this girl and got engaged in less than 6 months. She was downright rude and controlling and said very very hurtful things and never apologized. Along comes her wedding and she threatens me so much I started crying after they said I do because the wedding was so stressful. It was embarrassing.
Now my wedding is coming and I don’t want her to be a part of anything. But FMIL is insisting she be at the head table, be part of the ceremony, and basically be included a lot. My partner and I have been having fights every night about this for a week after this was suggested.
I’m so tired of fighting but seeing this woman is so stressful and unpleasant I don’t want her to say something totally inappropriate at the wedding and make me cry(and it’s not just little things, shes said horrible things about my deceased father).
I’m not sure what to do. All of my partners family is against me and my family is backing me up. I hate it.
Miss H!! I know how you feel but trust me, mine is much worse so don’t feel bad anymore. Originally, his family made it seem like they liked me a lot. Little did I know it was just a ploy… a ploy to get all of my money! $17,000 (yes, THAT MUCH MONEY) later, I nipped it in the bud. I won’t say I’m from a rich family, but I work very hard and I learned to save because my parents were all about financial responsibility. Well, sure enough, when I said, “NO MORE MONEY!!” to those nut jobs, they refuse to talk to me, they call me names when speaking to my fiance, and they have refused to come to the wedding.
that’s fine with me because i’d hate to have 100 pictures of me either rolling my eyes or stranging my future in laws on my wedding day.
cheer up, at least your two familys can surface from this. the only way his side will surface from this is if i PAY them to do so. BLAH! the things i do for my future hubby!
[…] This week has, for previously mentioned reasons, kind of exhausted me wedding-wise and 2) It’s really awesome when he gets excited about […]
